Lent

I gave up Facebook for Lent. So now I'm blogging about it. People say blogging is dead. Maybe. Well, I'm still alive.

Anyway, in case anyone is reading this and wondering, yes, it is hard. Talking to a friend recently and she mentioned I was going into stealth mode, I had to clarify, not stealth. I really am not looking at anything, going on two weeks now. 

Yes, it is hard, but also kind of empowering. I like that I'm able to do it. However, I was surprised to find out this is a 40 day period, not four weeks. Six weeks. So I'm one third of the way there. 

Then there's Lent. What is the purpose of Lent? 

This is from Wikipedia: 

"There are traditionally forty days in Lent which are marked by fasting, both from foods and festivities, and by other acts of penance. The three traditional practices to be taken up with renewed vigour during Lent are prayer (justice towards God), fasting (justice towards self), and almsgiving (justice towards neighbour).

However, in modern times, observers give up an action of theirs considered to be a vice, add something that is considered to be able to bring them closer to God, and often give the time or money spent doing that to charitable purposes or organizations.^[27]"

Two thoughts: I hadn't considered giving the time I'd spend on FB to a charitable purpose or organization. Woah~ that would mean I'd have to count or approximate a count of the minutes/ hours. Sad and scary. 

I've been caught on FB at meetings, even, at work. That's a lot of time. Probably 1-3 hours per day if I averaged it. 

What would that charitable purpose be?  Well, I work from 3-11, so I have daytime hours available to do something somewhere. I will think about this one. Maybe the Sustainability Fair could use some help. 

Second thought: The idea of justice, where does that come from? Seems a different interpretation of the word to me. Maybe balancing the scales of sin? I guess I can see the fasting part, the almsgiving, but prayer? Does that do anything for God? How can we give justice to God? seems weird~ but like I really believe I have to believe any of this to participate? I just know I like liturgy and I believe in a higher/ fuller/ more real something.